


Daybreak, Be My Demise

by MistressAkira



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Being Supportive, Cuddling & Snuggling, Drunkenness, Fluff and Angst, Hangover, Introspection, M/M, Making Out, Non-Linear Narrative, Pining, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Time Skip, Post-War, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, Wrestling, accidental bed sharing, aka felix in one of dima's big ol shirts, and mental health issues, and pinning haha, by like a day hahaha, minor spoilers for BL route, minor spoilers for character death, talking about feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 12:53:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20817587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressAkira/pseuds/MistressAkira
Summary: It’s hard to say good morning when it’s followed with goodbye.(or alternatively, Felix gets drunk, makes bad choices, and can’t talk about his feelings like a normal person.)





	Daybreak, Be My Demise

**Author's Note:**

> My attempt at something soft and sweet. Partial success??? I legit feel like I went through the five stages of grief writing this. Special thanks to Aija for giving me pointers and letting me whine about this fic to for like a month and a half.
> 
> Here’s 10 unnecessary k about boys in a single dorm room bed.

Dawn was but an orange crack on the horizon when Felix opened his eyes. 

Thin, pale light filtered in through the dorms’ latticed glass, cajoling the flickering dust motes into a star-speckled haze that blanketed the room, the first whispers of the coming autumn chilling the air. He blinked once, twice, adjusting to the sudden intrusion of consciousness, acutely aware of the rotation of his eyeballs within their sockets. 

There was a thick ache directly behind them, like a knife had been lodged sideways through his skull but the executioner's hand had slipped, the parting bliss of being put out of his misery not only denied but now actively taunting him. Swallowing was a yet another deeply unpleasant experience he found, yielding a painfully dry throat tinged with the tastes of things Felix would have been happy to never think about, let alone imbibe, ever again. A fool he was, assuming adulthood would’ve improved his piss-poor alcohol tolerance. It had not.

Acquiescing to but not quite yet accepting of this new state of being, Felix squinted ruefully against the dim glow of the coming day before stretching and rolling onto his back, the ensuing pops and cracks withering what little desire to continue existing he had left.

_ Goddess, end me now. _

“Good morning.”

The voice came directly from his right, a broken glass, whetstone rasp he knows the owner of before he even has to look. 

But still he looks, and still he is confounded to find the boar prince- the boar _ king _\- of Faerghus laying on his side mere inches away, face half-buried in a pillow and elegant collar bones pouring indecently from the gaping neck of his sleep shirt. Languishing in the young sunlight like a large cat with the unfortunate fate of finding himself in Felix’s bed, Dimitri blinked his cyclops eye sleepily at him, lips cracked from the cold and deathly pale pallor flushed by sleep, and somehow Felix’s throat goes even drier.

_ He sleeps with his eye patch on, _ is the first thought that stumbles through his head. And the second, impossibly even _ less _constructive, concern: 

That there is far, far too much of him_ here_.

He is everywhere Felix looks. Broad frame, long limbs- even his blond mane, spreading out unbidden, falling over his face and tumbling in sleep-wild tresses across the pillows like the surface of a sun-kissed ocean, if an ocean matted like fur and stuck out like the points of a star. And his face was squished into that poor pillow, but Felix was still swimming in summer-sky blue, so close that each small shift in the mattress from Dimitri’s breathing had Felix riding the pulse in an unspeakable wave of emotion, haunting in that he’s been here before, though it had been many years since then- a different bed in a different place with two very different boys in it. 

There was suddenly not enough air here, at least not enough air that doesn’t have Dimitri in it. Felix was caught, unwilling or perhaps just afraid to breathe, lest he somehow trapped himself here. 

Not that escape was much of an option, currently. There was a suspiciously sharp edge pinning Felix's thigh to the bed that he feared to be a hip bone… but he was too afraid to look.

He’s too afraid to look and he’s too afraid to breathe so he spends the next several moments staring at him in the hairsbreadth they're apart like a half-wit before his mind and his mouth realign and Felix remembers the fact that he _ does not _ remember going to sleep like this.

“...Why are you in my room?” He growled, the dryness of his throat crackling like tinder catching fire.

The king yawned, covering his mouth politely as he did so though the rich, breathy rumble of his voice wasn't suited for anything even remotely _ mannerly _. “Actually, we are in mine.”

Craning his neck, Felix did a quick once over of the room and… _ huh. Definitely not... _ While he would have never described his room as excessively adorned, Dimitri’s was positively _ austere _. A small vase of half-dead flowers was the only item that lived upon the shelves, all the gathered dust an indicator that it’d been that way for some time, and other than the fur-lined shapes of shed clothing and a stack of paperwork on the school-issue desk, there was little more to suggest that an actual human being dwelled here. Areadbhar was the only thing that spoke of Dimitri in this room, wrapped protectively in a cloth and leaning against the wall, Crest stone leering out like a wicked spectator.

“By the time the party was over last night, you would barely walk. And by the time we got back here, I was too tired to haul you to your room.” Dimitri continued, drawing Felix’s attention back to him, their eyes meeting as the beginnings of a small smile found its footing on the boar’s lips. “I was more than willing to sleep on the floor, but then you crawled into bed with me. I didn’t have the heart to push you out.”

Felix snorted, pressing his palms into his aching eyes. He truly detested his capability to experience… anything right now. “How gracious of you.”

But it was coming back to him. Last night, the celebration. 

The end of the war.

It was over. They’d won. They’d stormed Enbarr, and miracle of miracles, had lived to tell the tale. And after a grueling march back to Garreg Mach, threw a feast for the ages, during which they all ate and drank and danced like the world had almost ended- because perhaps it nearly had- and at some point Felix had achieved a degree of inebriation so immense he had to be delivered manually back to the dorms by his king.

_ Pathetic, _he grimaced into the darkness of his hands.

A light chuckle came from Dimitri's side of the bed. He must've been watching him.

Felix only scowled harder. 

But as the laughter faded into a hum, Felix felt how the bed dipped, _ just _ a bit- though it was different from the repetitious flow of Dimitri’s breathing. 

No, this was the nearly imperceptible motion of of his king edging _ away _from him. 

The old wooden bed whimpered as the boar's huge body resettled itself elsewhere, the little dark sigh he let out as he did catching in the swordsman's ears. And, ah, he hadn’t noticed before, but Felix caught it then. 

… It would seem_ he _ wasn’t the only thing Dimitri didn’t want to face right now. The breathless wheeze that escapes Felix’s chest isn't quite a chuckle, but it's more than a little delirious. 

His laugh settles like the dust, and the silence thereafter. Though farther away, Dimitri’s intention still hung heavily in the air, and there’s not much else Felix really wanted to document about that. 

The pause between them is like a breath drawn in. Hesitant, but necessary. 

Felix breathed out a sigh of his own. He wasn’t nearly lucid enough for this right now.

Removing his hands from his face, it was then he noticed the excessive fabric bunched up around his wrists, only the tips of his fingers visible from within the sleeves’ hollow depths. Upon further examination, he discovered he was wearing a heavy black flannel- one he was fairly certain isn’t his, based on the size- and… not much else.

“This…”

Dimitri’s eye flicked from Felix’s raised hands to his face before turning tail for the ceiling, a bright pink blooming on his high cheeks. “You were… insistent in stripping down the moment we got here. I gave you that shirt for the sake of my own sanity...”

He trailed off, and Felix doesn’t have to look at him. He could hear it in his voice.

Far be from Felix to assume anything about Dimitri at this point, but after a lifetime by his side, he could still read him like a book. And Dimitri knew this too.

Felix had spared him nothing in that first conversation they’d had after the king’s relapse with sanity. And to his surprise, Dimitri had risen to the occasion. Not the corpse, not the boar- it was _ Dimitri _who looked him in the eye and promised to atone with actions instead of words.

That talk hadn’t fixed everything. Not by a long shot. But the relief of just having had it was startlingly immediate. 

The shift was gradual, yet quick to take hold. They’d lost it, these past seven years, but bit by bit, they were finding their way back to each other. There’s a pause between breaths, an aversion of eyes, an old hesitation they’ve subsisted with for far too long and a new one they’ve not yet figured out, but they’re working at it. They never stopped sparring, even during their academy days, but Felix doesn’t want to blink and have it be over anymore. And the once delicate dance of sharing a meal no longer steals Dimitri’s tongue or makes Felix want to break things- though the former Felix occasionally wishes to happen when the boar decides to rehash stories from their childhood to the professor. 

Though it’s unspoken, they establish a line_ . _They don’t address it- Dimitri’s ghosts, Felix’s rage, their shared guilt and pain and grief and uncertainty. They discuss the goings on casually, their problems shallowly. They don’t move too fast. They respect the line.

Because they both understood what would happen otherwise. This connection between them, their lifetime bond- battered as it was- would inevitably draw them back together, taught like a cord, tight as a noose. And they would crash, if they let it come too quick. They’d crash into each other, and never be able to figure out whose broken pieces were whose ever again.

For the first few weeks, it was manageable. But, inveritably, inevitably, it’s them. Out of practice, accidental, one always trips up. 

(When Felix touches Dimitri on the shoulder, and he flinches back so violently he knocks a chair over. When Dimitri speaks of his doom desires the way the reverent worship the Star, and Felix has to leave the room. 

When Felix falls asleep on his shoulder one night while on watch. When Dimitri offhandedly calls him _ Glenn _. 

When it gets too much, when the blood runs too deep.)

Then it’s _evade_, _evade, evade. _Dodging loaded questions and vulnerable looks like arrows on the battlefield. Keep the balance between them at an equilibrium, neither of them pushing too far, saying too much. For every step closer, take an inch back. Be careful, be careful, _mind_ _the line_.

They’d been so careful. They minded the line. Felix was still waiting for Dimitri to change his mind, to prove his father’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain, that his brother’s memory wasn’t an excuse. And Dimitri wasn’t yet ready to forgive himself, wasn’t yet willing to exorcise the ghostly choir from his head nor relinquish the gravestones around his neck. 

It wasn’t perfect, and they never would be again. But Dimitri was letting people in, even if he could barely stand to be touched. And Felix was taking his hand, even if he held it at arm’s length.

They could have accomplished it. Remained close, but kept their distance.

If Arianrhod hadn’t happened. 

It was Felix’s own doing. The crash was all but fated, but in the end, Felix proved to be the weaker man. 

And the worst part was he would have accomplished it a week earlier, _ if they hadn’t been interrupted… _

A pause. A breath.

Felix sighed. 

He wanted to leave. He was already awake, and there was no reason for him to linger. Certainly no reason to remain half-naked in his estranged childhood friend's bed. 

However, as he went to rise, a sharp bolt of pain tore down his spine, flash-frying his insides from head to guts. Agony crashed down on him like a wave, crushing all the breath from his lungs at the shock, and he fell back to the bed with a groan. Adding insult to injury, the blankets had been kicked up by his undignified flopping, utterly useless as Felix was then treated to the fresh abrasion of autumn on his bare legs, and that was all it took to send him back burrowing into the bed like a stupid ermine who'd thought himself lucky with an early spring. 

For the next several moments, Felix stewed there miserably, lamenting his head and his life choices but especially his drunken self who thought it wise to strip before the boy he'd wanted since time immemorial. Though the brisk bite of the early morning air was nothing compared to Faerghus' year-round wintery maw, his weak limbs were reluctant to attempt escape again, stubborn and heavy and as utterly _ useless _ as the boar himself- who was still just laying _ there _, crested by the golden slivers of the coming day and breathing like it was a free thing to do. 

At least Dimitri's eye remained fixed upon the ceiling, like a stalwart guard sent from the room, unable to witness Felix's weakness. He almost seemed to be dozing back off, golden eyelashes fluttering against the light the way the drowning fight the swell. 

Felix squinted at him, silently willing for sleep to reclaim him. If he had to continue making a fool of himself, he’d much rather there wasn’t a conscious audience. Though he also would have been just as fine if a very large, very blunt object descended from the heavens and put them both out of their misery.

… No avail. The boar only stared stare off at the star-speckled rafters and rubbed the skin under his eyepatch. The movement unsettled his fringe, revealing the dark scrap of fabric as it lifted just enough for a discolored patch of scar tissue to become visible from Felix's vantage point underneath him. Somehow, he'd forgotten about it. But there it was, lurking like an animal in the underbrush, innocuous at first glance but deeply unsettling once one realized it was there. 

This unsettled feeling, when distilled with Felix’s understanding of Dimitri, turns to despair. 

… Was it always like this, even when he was alone? Still so guarded that he couldn’t release that whiteknuckled grip even when he slept, his shame so deep that he couldn’t allow himself to simply exist in his basest form, meeting his basic needs? Even around him?

_ Even around him _… how entitled Felix had become, as of late. Thinking he held some power over him! That his voice carried over the ones in his head. Like any of this would have mattered once Dimitri was crowned. 

And_ why _ was this even his main concern right now?

Felix curled deeper into himself, fisting the blanket like it was his lifeline to sanity. Curse him for this pathetic display. What had he been thinking, drinking like that? Letting himself go, needing someone to clean up after him, ending up in this position- disgraceful, _ humiliating _ . It had been a _ party, _certainly, and the fact that Felix’s skin remained attached to himself was indeed celebratory. Keeping his cup empty proved harder then keeping it full, and Felix downed each refill every single time, not unlike he had that night at Arionrhod. 

But how much of it was celebration, and how much self-flagellation? 

Seeing his comrades, _ his friends _, breathing and joyous after it all… Felix wasn’t immune to emotion, and though his relationship with it for many years had been distant at best and denied at worst, happiness was still something he wished for. And he had felt happy, last night. Surrounded by laughing, dancing, living people he cared about. Knowing these past five years had amounted to something. That the pain meant something.

Pain didn’t always mean something. It was just a byproduct of life. And death. People could call a death ‘good’, but there was no such version for grief. And as much as he protected it, Felix would never have denied his pain existed, that it would exist in some form and capacity for the rest of his life. But he’d pay it its due piece of his soul and he would continue to live, and he could have continued to do this for as long as he breathed, whether or not the boar, or his father, or anyone else was breathing too.

But it felt nice, knowing that those fragments had paved the way to Fhirdiad, to Enbarr. Back to Dimitri. Though it was far easier to ask things of people he’d owed nothing to than it was to ask of the person who’d held half of his heart for most of their lives. 

So, really, what was he supposed to_ do _? What right did he have to ask for-

Well… It would be a cold, _ cold _day in Ailell before Felix admitted that, let alone allowed himself the respite to articulate it, even if just in thought. 

The war was over. And now all he wanted was some goddessdamned peace. Whatever form that it took.

Or at least, that's what he'd rather believe he wanted.

“When was the last time this happened…?” Felix wondered aloud.

“Hmmm?” 

It is this question that brings Dimitri’s gaze down from orbit, and it was entirely clear he's awake now as his attention returned to Felix with rapt, almost eager, curiosity- though the confusion in his expression had Felix feeling foolish he’d even opened his mouth. 

“Me, falling asleep in your room.” Felix clarified with a quickness. He didn’t know of any other times he’d passed out in a drunken stupor in Dimitri’s bed, but given the wide-eyed way he’s still staring at him, Felix refused to give the other man an opening for the doubtlessly irritating thing he wants to say. 

...Though why Felix was even still dwelling on this was beyond him. Those were memories of a different person, a boy who’d been buried in a mass grave with the rest of the casualties of the western rebellion. What he _ should _ have been thinking about was getting up and finding his clothes and _ leaving. _

However, seeing how Felix’s body was still refusing to function, there wasn’t much that could be done to that effect right now. Here he was to remain, though he’s certain any more silence will be lethal. Also that he’ll either end up punching out his last good eye or combusting outright if Dimitri kept looking at him like that.

So, with nowhere else to go, Felix followed the boar’s example, turning away and acquainting himself with the ceiling. “Probably when we were kids, yeah?” He supplied after a moment in an attempt to get the conversation to continue.

“Ah, no, actually,” Dimitri eventually said, though the low timbre of his voice barely registered over the shrill accompanying squeak as he shifted once again. _ He’s going to hit the wall at this rate. _“Final exams. Five years ago? Do you remember? All eight of us squeezed in here and-”

“The study group, right. Sylvain brought a whole damn picnic.” Felix rolled his eyes. “And Annette made up that song.”

A chuckle from Dimitri. “I don’t think half of us would have remembered all the military bases on the test without that song.”

A grumble from Felix. “It was stuck in my head for a week afterwards. I’m in the middle of training and the next thing I know, I’m humming the Active Military Bases of Fódlan in Alphabetical Order Song in my head. The professor even caught me once. The way she looked at me… ugh.”

Another chuckle. Then a pause. A breath. 

“We stayed up really late that night.” Dimitri said next.

Felix's gaze strayed to the other side of the room. “... I fell asleep at your desk.”

“You did.”

A pause. A deep breath. Felix still didn’t want to look at him, so he doesn’t. His eyes flicked back to the ceiling, the beams dusted in orange light as the shadows grew paler with the rising sun.

“I slept terribly that night. A chair that uncomfortable has no right to exist.”

“I didn’t sleep at all.”

The next pause dropped like dead weight, and Felix couldn’t breathe for a moment. 

He doesn’t want to look at him. 

(But, _ damn him _, he’s making that hard.)

Dimitri forged on.“I wasn’t sleeping very much anyways, at the time. And I was _ genuinely _ terrified of not passing my exams...” His laugh rang hollow, and the bed creaked again, though Felix wasn’t sure how much farther there was for him to flee at this point. When he spoke again, his voice had evened out, like he’d pressed all the slips and wrinkles into submission himself. “So, I just stayed up and kept studying. I did send everyone else back to their dorms, though. I didn’t want anyone to get in trouble on my account.”

Felix scoffed, though mostly he was just grateful for the opportunity to seethe about something other than his own shameful inadequacies. “And you just_ left me _?”

“Your room was just next door. I didn’t think you’d get in trouble.” Dimitri pointed out, the edge of a taunt teasing his tone. “_Y__ou_ were the first to fall asleep, anyways. Just like when we were kids.” 

Felix growled. “Why must you insist on dragging every pathetic thing I did as a child into our adult lives?”

The king hummed. “Perhaps because you really haven’t changed that much.”

The swing’s coming before Felix altogether realized what he’d done. But the next thing he knows, his fist has connected with Dimitri’s shoulder and the rest of his body was following it through.

Dimitri crashed into the wall. That much was unavoidable, but the crack of his skull colliding with stone had Felix frozen in half second it took for the reality of what he'd done to crash down on him- before a hand appeared on his chest, and then his world went sideways to the broken sound of Dimitri’s laughter. 

Ass over teakettle, Felix went flying and landed on his back, staring dizzly up at the ceiling as the coarse, rusty ring of the boar’s laughter reverberated around him. It was a terrible, ruinous noise- like the shattering of something holy or the beheading of a goose that finds great humor in its predicament, a sound too horrible for hearing individuals and too happy for the person it’s coming from that somehow still birthed butterflies in Felix’s stomach despite the way his heart braced on instinct. And then Dimitri's face swam into view. 

He was hunched over, huge shoulders shaking, eyebrows turned up in sheepish apology though his blue eye shone watery with glee. There’s nothing even remotely threatening about him like this- the grip on Felix’s heart falters. 

But it's his wide, careless grin that reaches inside his chest and rips Felix’s resolve right out of him.

Blond hair goes everywhere as Dimitri’s back was forcefully reunited with the bed, courtesy of Felix’s knee. And he got all of the time it took Felix is rear back again to gather his breath before the swordsman was whaling on him. 

A strike to the side, a punch to the chest, Felix laid into him without mercy. Everything in his head was awhirl as he flung his fits with wild abandon- _ stupid, stupid, thickheaded boar _\- and it took him a moment to make sense that Dimitri was laughing again- giggling like a child as they collided, arms locked as they fought for the upper hand. Dimitri attempted a jab at Felix’s stomach and succeeded at pushing him away, but Felix was elastic, and he had more than just anger or competitiveness driving him on. He latched onto his arm, wrapping his legs around it and forcing it to the mattress. From this new angle, Felix tried to knee him again but Dimitri caught the blow and shoved it off. It sent him sprawling, legs in the air as he scrambled for purchase on the sheets as he was nearly sent over the edge, the ground looming cold and unfriendly far below.

But falling was the least of his worries. As the next thing Felix knew, a huge, scarred hand was pinning him down and Dimitri loomed over him. 

The boar grinned down at him hard, all teeth. Though his posture was relaxed, his hair was _ wild _, mussed and stuck to his face and lips, the shining blue of his eye like a spell luring Felix into the dark. 

He shifted, the bed whining beneath them as the king brought his other hand to brace himself above Felix, hair falling around them like a partition. In this impossibly smaller space his laughter was softer now, private, riddled with lispy little hiccups that jolted and jumped out of him like the aftershocks of an earthquake. Felix could feel each sudden lurch of his breathing reverberate through his own chest, the air displaced from his lungs coming out in shrill airy squeaks unbefitting of such a massive creature, and the sound was something too childish, too pure for this moment. 

Dimitri leaned closer, the light eclipsed as his shadow overtook them. A heady puff of morning breath heated up Felix’s neck as he closed in... And _ he’s smirking! _ Felix realized, indignant, as that smiling face dipped and disappears below his chin. _ That beast, he thinks he’s won- _

Teeth raked down his throat and Felix didn’t hesitate. 

He snapped his head up, headbutting his king square in the jaw. Dimitri recoiled with a yelp, and though his vision was half black and his ears were ringing like they were full of bells, Felix shoved him the rest of the way off, years of brawling practice in effect as he flipped them over. His knees collided with the bed as he landed on the boar’s chest, their weight driving another wail from the bed as it smashes into the wall. Dimitri’s hands flew out, and Felix felt them clamp down on either side of his waist, momentarily dazed by the pressure as they dug into his ribs- 

Until he felt the force behind them pushing him away. 

With a twist, he’s dislodged their grip and got Dimitri’s hands in his. And then Felix was pinning them to the mattress above his head.

With one final groan from the bed springs, Dimitri’s resistance faltered at last. Under Felix’s hands, he fell still, and a rasping laugh escaped Felix’s throat as he squinted away the stars still swarming his vision. His chest was heaving, every bone and muscle in his body shrieking a bloody opera, but it was so _ gratifying. _

_ The stupid boar, that’ll teach him to watch his mouth _, he thought triumphantly. Triumph that only lasts until he made the mistake of looking down. 

And it’s then Felix realized. Their position. He’s got his king pinned in the mattress, straddling him in nothing but a borrowed shirt and his smallshorts. Dimitri’s single eye bore into him, decimated and starstruck like he was seeing him for the first time, and its hovering there that Felix realized that some point during the tussle his hair had come undone, wavy dark layers falling in his peripheral vision and flying every which way. But even with that, there’s nowhere to hide. 

He’d been so ardent on evading him all morning- the line caught underfoot, and_ he just kept_ _tripping up_\- but there was nowhere Felix could flee to now, Dimitri pinned under him but Felix the one held captive. 

Dimitri tilted his chin up, and there was something so terribly vulnerable in that action that Felix actually feared it, as if there was something he’s supposed to do, something that only he can do, something he can do _ wrong _. He hated eye contact, even on a good day, even with him, but somehow the boar had managed to force the weight of a full gaze into his half one and Felix was going to buckle under it. 

And then the beast has _ the gall _ to hiccup _ . _ His whole chest convulsed, the sudden shake and lurch Felix feeling all the way through his thighs and knees, and against his will, his hips rolled through the motion. A groan escaped his lips as their hands shift together, and there’s a gentle pressure on his knuckles as they _ squeeze _, and Felix can’t be sure who’s doing it because it might be him.

(Oh goddess, this might be him.)

They stilled, and it ignites a very long pause between them. Felix’s breathing was still coming far too fast. In the wake of that terrible hiccup, Dimitri’s seemed to have shown itself entirely from the room. 

And all the while, the bed continued to groan its displeasure, the longer Felix pushed them into it. But his arms felt leaden. And Dimitri wouldn’t let go of his hands.

“... We’re going to break the bed at this rate.” The king said quietly.

“And who’s fault would that be?” Felix hissed back. His hands were sweating tremendously within the boar’s now, but he could ignore the blazing of his cheeks if he kept that heat redirected elsewhere.

“Mine, I suppose.” Dimitri conceded. He closed his eye. “But what in the world shall I tell the professor?”

Felix let go of him like he was on fire.

“_ Stop it _.” He snarled, the words crawling up from deep in his chest by fangs and claws. The ability to escape had eluded him all morning, only now Felix had already torn down all his barriers himself, so there was nothing but reflex and relief that had him rolling off Dimitri’s chest and flinging himself down at the foot of the bed. “Stop talking.”

The frame whined sharply as Dimitri shifted behind him, his shadow appearing beside Felix’s on the wall as he straightened up like a spring. 

“Felix,” He murmured, his voice so overwrought, so_ tender, _ it blistered Felix's ears red as modification skewered him though like a stuck pig. “I didn’t-”

“Shut up. Boars have no right to speak.”

He watched the wall, waiting for the king to make a move, but Dimitri didn’t reach out for him or offer further rebuttal, and for that, Felix was thankful. He pulled his knees into his chest and buried his face in them, shivering though the room's chill was nothing to him now. 

An oppressive silence crowded in, punctuated only by the chattering of birds beyond the occasional hiccup, and it's only once his heartbeat has faded from his ears that Felix had the presence of mind to check himself over for injuries. It’s not a lengthy search- there’s not much of his own skin he can’t already _ see _\- but after a quick once over of his legs and a peek down his shirt, Felix was surprised to find that there weren't any. Not even a bruise. The boar must have kept himself in check.

_ Don’t praise him for that _ , his mind immediately snapped back. _ No one deserves congratulations for just being a person. _

Felix felt the palm of a hand with the fingers of his other.

… But he hadn’t hurt him this time.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t already left his mark on Felix before. Even as a child Dimitri’s strength was hellish, and they’d had their fair share of altercations. Once, when they were ten, Dimitri had smashed his training lance into Felix’s sword so forcefully that it’d shattered them both on impact, and they’d spent the rest of the afternoon in the castle infirmary getting splinters removed from their hands and arms. One that embedded in Felix’s wrist had gotten infected, requiring a lengthy cleaning and wrapping process that forbade training and effectively ruined all their plans for the rest of Felix’s visit to Fhirdiad. He’d been furious through it all, but Dimtri had been so mopey and pathetic and apologetic he’d had no choice but to forgive him. The scar on the inside of Felix’s wrist his reward for the trouble.

Then there was the time when they were older- thirteen but still hardly more than children- a few months after the Tragedy, and Dimitri had wondered if it would have been better if he’d died in Glenn’s stead. Felix had pushed and shoved at him until he fell into a sad little heap on the floor, spitting the kind of cruelty only heartbreak can create- _ what is wrong with you, Glenn died and it’s only your own self-pity you’re concerned with, how could you think that, how you could want that, how could you imagine that I’d prefer that? _

Felix had meant every word, but he hadn’t meant for Dimitri to cry. But cry Dimitri did, fat, drippy tears that he buried in wet sobs into his knees, and though the prince had always been the clumsy one, it was Felix’s misstep that first fractured their tentative bond after the Tragedy. And then soon it would always become Felix who made the first move, threw the first punch, forced the distance between the cracks and made them break- every action committed with conscious intention, because somehow it was worse when he hurt him without meaning to, the pain that followed striking Felix numb just as it had that day staring upon Dimitri’s shivering form as he wept upon the Fraldarius manor’s floor. 

Felix tore a hand through his hair, hating the way the frizzy waves felt between his fingers. How was it that they always ended up hurting each other when they didn’t mean to? The worst things they’d ever done to each other, it was always on accident. Even this mess they’ve found themselves in now, all on accident.

Only… No. No, it really wasn’t. 

This was never going to be an accident, when it eventually happened. They’d seen the crash coming from miles away, and though he never used to believe in fate, as an adult Felix had come to accept that some things were just meant to be.

From birth, he and Dimitri were bound. It seemed like no matter what happened, that would always be the case. Though this bond had changed over the years, grown and reshaped itself just as they had, the truth remained: there had always been something between them, layered amidst their fathers’ promises and their ancestors’ allegiance. Separate from everything else, something meant only for them, a journey to a distant location they’d reach one day so long as they made it together. Felix had always longed to find that place between them, even before he was old enough to realize what that meant.

For years, he’d all but given up on reaching it. The Tragedy tore Dimitri’s hand from his own, the path they were set upon as children dashed under heel the same as the western rebels’ skulls beneath Dimitri’s boots, and a stumbling seventeen-year-old Felix had made the choice to sever that cord binding them, trying to slip the noose it threatened to become.

In the absence of devotion, strength sustained him. Its purpose lost without Glenn to best or Dimitri to protect, but for Felix it provided a new journey, a new destination, a replacement for what had fallen out of reach. Something he could seek in solitary, allowing him to bury those childish feelings, and the weak, weeping child that once had them. But here he was now, five years older and hardly any fucking wiser, wishing for things he no longer had the right to want even with the knowledge that it was his own doing that started them down this path again.

Yes, here he was, twenty-three years old and weak as before. 

In Arianrhod, Felix had made another conscious choice in following Dimitri out into the hall. Away from another party, he’d let them find themselves in a corner, just their bodies and the white candlelight- a world unto their own, out of the way of others’ eyes. He wouldn’t have to admit to anything this way. It could still have been played off. Or he could have walked away. Dimitri wouldn't tell a soul. He’d blame himself, and even if that wasn’t what Felix_ wanted _, it was something he could have lived with.

Because everything was fine until Dimitri reached out for his hand.

It was the first time he'd touched him on purpose since coming back. Dimitri didn't touch anybody- and was only just starting to allow others to touch _ him _ in return. (The echo of that chair hitting the ground, the professor’s hand on Dimitri’s shoulder, _ don’t think about it _, mind the line.) But here he was, holding a conversation so casual with Felix he didn't even notice Dimitri slipping his fingers between his own until they were already interlocked and inseparable. 

He shouldn't have been surprised. This had always been their way. Though it took Felix twenty-three years to realize it.

And as the pieces finally fell into place in his head, Felix could only stare at their conjoined hands as Dimitri had rubbed his thumb across the top of the swordsman’s, the slick sound of the fabrics of their gloves sliding together the loudest thing in the world. 

The conversation had stalled. Though unspoken, they faced a choice. The same one Felix had convinced himself a fool for attempting a week ago, the same one he’d risen up on tiptoe to reach for when that servant had some barreling down the hall, baring Claude’s request for aid and sending them spiraling apart in the shadows then and spiraling back into each other now.

And so, as the line loomed between them, Felix took Dimitri by that hand and pulled him over it. One thing led to another, a soft look, a kind word too many, and then Felix had the crown prince- the _ king to be _\- pinned to the wall between his arms, and he was kissing him. And Dimitri was kissing him back. And they weren't interrupted by a missive from Claude, or the professor, or a servant, or anyone else.

They crashed into each other, kissing until their lips were pink and raw, giving way to tongues and teeth. They kissed until they consumed each other, hands in hair and tearing at cloaks, until Dimitri whispered that his room just down the hall, that maybe they should move- 

Until Felix came to his senses.

Then he’d pushed him back, pushed him away. Wiped the saliva from his chin and his king's taste from his lips.

_ You haven't earned it, boar. _He said. And then he'd walked away.

That was going to be it. Felix had found it- that sought after space, and he’d made this choice, tested the line and came to his senses, finding that _ no, _Dimitri hadn’t earned this yet. Two victories and a month’s rumination wouldn’t fix a five year divide, the chasm left by nearly a decade of grief and disdain. But it was still Felix who had done this to them, and he deserved the guilt of taking that step forward. It was up to him to inch them back, and even with the line in shambles, he'd force it back between them his own damn self.

Somehow, things limped back to normal after that. The war went on. They sparred and ate together, did chores and discussed tactics. Felix was still Felix and Dimitri still the boar, and if Felix had kissed Dimitri in Arianrhod after trying and failing to kiss him in Fhirdiad, no one was the wiser. And if Felix’s fated collision with the line had any consequence on their relationship, the boar kept it to himself. The malaise of routine was easy to fall into, and after a while Felix had grown comfortable convincing himself that the worst part of it all was just living the shame of having had to try _ twice _ to successfully kiss this fool. (As Felix was incapable of learning anything except the hard way, it would seem.) 

However, only a few months later, he would be proven terribly, horribly wrong. Because then the worst part of it all _ wasn’t _ that he’d tried to kiss Dimitri after they’d taken back Fhirdiad, and failed.

No, the worst part was that after Arianrhod he’d kissed him again.

The second time wasn't anything compared to the first. There was no celebration, no party. No hiding in hallway corners so as not to be caught with his feelings in-hand, no humiliation and righteousness spurring him on. It was a quiet night at the end of a quiet week in the middle of the month. There had been training and planning, like always, but there were no immediate battles, no quests to complete. There was absolutely nothing special at all about that Sunday night. 

Other than that Dimitri needed him.

It was a tale as old as time. Felix went to the training grounds to wind down before bed, but discovered he'd been beaten there. Inevitably they bantered, then spared, Felix winning three times and Dimitri once before the he flopped down in the middle of the grounds and declared himself done.

The cord pulled tight, and Felix found himself joining the boar on the floor. More banter, all careful belligerence and well-rehearsed retorts, but soon even that grew tired, and then finally they were just left to talk. Dimitri confessed to being in a bout. There hadn’t been anything wrong, but somehow nothing quite felt right either. The looming presence of the crown never helped, nor the bone-deep desire for justice, but they were constants the king had grown accustomed to shouldering. No, that night the source of his anguish had been much simpler. Only the trifles of breathing, how they weighed on him sometimes. 

He was lost in his head again, needing to be reached out to. Felix could remember the exact moment he’d realized the weight of this responsibility as it fell to him, the incredible importance of it as it laid prone in his lap. 

It was not the first time in the swordsman’s life that he’d been presented with the boar’s broken edges- far from it. But it was the first in which it was only Felix who could have done something then. Only him there to gather up those pieces no matter how much they cut and caused his hands to bleed, and hold them up, offer them back, remind Dimitri that he was still among the living and that there was still more yet to live for. It was the first time Felix saw the truth of the path as it laid before them now, saw the sacrifices they've made, the sacrifices he’d have to continue to make for the role he’d play in Dimitri’s life going forward. It was the first time it was up to Felix to put him back together, but if this was to be their life then it wouldn’t be the last.

And he’d thought… _ Sacrifice _ . He wasn't incapable of sacrifice. He only despised when it was meaningless. Six months ago, a year, five, perhaps he would have been convinced that all these words and thoughts and actions were meaningless, _ the boar was beyond saving. _The beast would have only taken a bite out of any heart Felix had shown him, consuming what little there was left of it anyway. How could that have been meaningful? How could that have helped anyone?

At first he’d been convinced his father’s sacrifice too would be in vain. Another body to decorate the boar’s war path. But then he’d begun to change. It was Dimitri who clawed his way out from underneath Rodrigue’s corpse, _ Dimitri _ who raised his head and gasped for air as if he hadn’t breathed in years. And it was the king who used every breath afterwards to prove to himself and others that none of it would be meaningless. 

And, well… that was _ better _ but it also wasn’t _ it _, either. Living for vengeance and living for worth, neither extreme would keep Dimitri from that dark place that yawned within him, would save him from the knife’s edge he teetered upon. 

So Felix would do this. Felix would do this every time. For else the boar would wallow like he was wont to do, and what use would that be for anyone.

(And, really... how much of his heart was there left to give at this point? He'd long since stopped expecting those pieces back. Because even broken, Dimitri was still his whole world.)

That night, he’d reached out and taken him by the hand. They were both still wearing their gloves, and Felix remembered wishing that they weren’t. But then he turned and their eyes met and Dimitri leaned in, slow enough for Felix to flee if he so chose, but he didn't and he let it happen again.

There were no external pressures propelling this kiss. Not the adrenaline of victory, nor the need to test one desire against the other. Nothing to stop them, and nothing to prove. Just two boys- orphaned, distant non-strangers who six months ago hadn’t even know the other was alive, seeking comfort, seeking each other.

Perhaps that's why this one felt so important. And so much worse.

And it only worsened- irreversible, irrevocable- when Dimitri laid them down on the floor, fumbling and chuckling and so terribly sincere with every sweet mumble and apology. His touch found its way into Felix’s hair, under his clothes, and with that sweet mouth and those clumsy hands he held him down and bruised him up worse than any training session in his life. And Felix took each one gladly between gritted teeth, his every breath dizzy and affected, mind simultaneously full to bursting and empty of all thought. 

The bruises he’d earned that night, he wore them like a prize for the week they lasted, admiring their array with a dark sort of pride when he was alone. Most were hidden easily under the collar of his turtleneck, with the exception of one just below his ear at the junction of his jaw and neck. Blatant and purple, it was impossible to hide, though there had been a part of him that reveled in how apparent it made him feel, seen and marked and _owned- _proof of his belonging, his path, his sacrifice. 

But like those bruises, this too was doomed to fade one day. Set on a collision course once upon a time, their circumstances had changed, and though perhaps this had always been inevitable, it was also destined to be impermanent. 

… They hadn’t discussed what awaited them back in the Kingdom. For so long, it had been uncertain whether there would even _ be _ a Kingdom to return to, seeing how after Fhirdiad’s reclamation and the liberation of Arianrhod all eyes turned to Enbarr, because even if Dimitri was all but king, he’d be king of nothing but the dead if Edelgard murdered them all. Felix himself had avoided most all thoughts of what the future held for him after the war, outside of the obvious. Stowing away his sword, taking over the Fraldarius lands, responsibilities he had prepared but hadn’t really mentally accounted for until… now, really. And that was nothing to say of Dimitri. Not only King of the Kingdom, but now of all of United Fódlan. He would be needing capable advisers and generals at his side to get them through this transition, as well as into the peace that followed.

And along with their evasion of other certain… things, so too had they avoided the topic of Felix’s succession as Duke. Namely, if he would even take it. 

There was a tradition- a history, more aptly- but in his quest for atonement, Dimitri had made it clear that he expected nothing of the others that aided him- only asked for their patience and their belief as he fought that uphill battle for himself. And atonement was all well and good, but a great deal of work awaited them all now that the war was over, and a great deal more loomed in the years to come, and the boar buckling under his own unrealistic expectations because he was still determined to pay penance with his own suffering was the most counterproductive thing Felix could imagine. 

As Felix had realized that night on the training ground floor, Dimitri would always need help; help seeing straight, help combating the darkness within himself, someone to reach out to him and haul him up and tell him not the things he wanted to hear but the things he _ needed _ to. It wasn’t difficult to imagine himself being that person. On the contrary, the thought buoyed something bright and young and delighted within him that he’d once sought to bury. But Felix had also spent so much of his life accepting the futility of his words, his actions, his feelings, compared to the boar’s self-destructive desires. Dimitri had never cared about what Felix wanted; he bowled forward and made a mess and asked for forgiveness instead of permission, but eventually he stopped asking for that too, though now he didn’t think he deserved either and well... what right did Felix have in promising to help him? As much as he was willing. As much as he wanted to. 

But Dimitri needed to learn how to put things behind him. Perhaps Felix too was meant to be one of those things.

A pause. A breath.

_ … Well it would appear Ailell was freezing over after all. _

“Are we leaving today?” Felix asked quietly, the words bitter on his tongue.

A pause. A breath. No response.

He took a deep breath. Perhaps that blunt object finally took its cue to appear.

Another moment... still nothing. Felix swallowed the lump in his throat. He didn’t want to look at him. But there were a great many things in life Felix didn’t want to do but inevitably did for Dimitri anyways, so, scowling, he forced his neck to turn and face against the blaring sunlight streaming through the windows, searching for his king. “I asked you a question.”

In the full glow of the morning sun, Dimitri was seated with his back to the headboard, hair in utter disarray with a pinkening bruise kissing up the underside of his jaw, lips pressed into a thin line as his gaze met Felix’s. Felix squinted against the light, discomforted but determined as their prolonged stare spooled out between until the king’s lip quivered and he realized-

“Why do you do this? Really. It confounds me a king acts in such a way.” Felix bit out, flat and not the _ least _ bit fond as all his bitterness evaporated in an instant, exasperation displacing it in the face of the king’s barely retained smile. 

Dimitri finally broke, a chuckle wringing free of his teeth as he tried in vain to keep his composure. “I’m listening to you, Felix. Is that not what you wanted?” Felix shot him another murderous scowl, the butterflies back with a vengeance- but its not like Dimitri needed to know _ that- _and the boar chuckled once more before sighing and running a hand through his rumpled hair. “But yes, I believe we are. There is no reason to postpone returning to Fhirdiad at this point. Not when there is so much to be done.”

Felix sniffed, turning to look away but not turning all the way back around. The wall Dimitri shared with Sylvain was lovely this time of morning.

“I see.”

Dimitri hummed, and then cleared his throat. All business. As if they weren't laying in his school bed, half dressed and bantering like children. “You are going home, too, I assume? Back to the Fraldarius lands.”

Felix thought of his uncle, still holding down the fort back in Fraldarius territory. He’d been furious after everything that'd happened his father had still thought it wise to leave his lands in the midst of turmoil, even if it was to be by Dimitri’s side. (But, really, how different was Felix anyhow.) Still, his uncle had done a well enough job of keeping the peace through the war effort, but there were several matters that had been pushed off by nature of necessity until the campaign had concluded. Though buried in Fhirdhad alongside his king and eldest son, Rodrigue’s will still needed to be settled, the villages and towns destroyed and all the soldiers borrowed for the war effort properly compensated- and more he probably just can’t think of right now, besides. 

Felix shrugged and let go of the beleaguered sigh that had been building in his chest, imagining all the paperwork that awaited him. “There’s no avoiding it. I’m lord now.”

“And... then?”

“And then, what?”

A creak. “Will you remain there?” And a hand alighted upon Felix, slipping between his shoulder blades like a sword into its sheath, its weight quadrupled with the question that came next. “Or… would you come to the capital with me?”

Felix doesn’t have to look to know what he’ll find. But he’s unable to stop himself once again as he turns to see his king behind him, closer than before, haloed by the sun and as earnest as Felix has always known him to be.

The sun collects in his hair, every wayward strand and odd lump lit up in golden light, and though the dark circles strain the blue of his eyes and that fresh bruise must smart something terrible, there is nothing but soft serenity in Dimitri’s expression as the hand on his back comes up to twist into Felix’s hair, dark strands becoming wound around Dimitri’s pale fingers as he tugged on a lock gently. “Would you like to do this every morning?”

Felix blinked, unable to hold the image presented to him in its entirety for more than a few seconds. “_ This? _” His voice cracked.

Dimitri’s other hand comes up to thread itself too through Felix’s locks, fingers combing through the waves; one of the many things Felix had inherited from his father despite his best intentions. 

“Talk. Joke around. Reminisce.” The king murmured, more breath than words. And then somehow, impossibly, sweeter, softer, “Wake up beside me.”

Felix’s stomach dropped, plummeting all the way to the core of the planet and the eternal flames that awaited there.

“Don’t- don’t ask for things you have no right to. Don’t you dare.” _ Don’t do this to me. _ “You’ll have to marry at some point, Dimitri. You’ll-”

“We’ll deal with that when we must.” He cut him off with a decisive nod. His response was so sudden, so forceful- with all the authority he commanded on the battlefield brooking no argument- Felix bit his tongue in surprise, but the retort he had died just as quickly.

Felix swallowed, mouth stinging like punishment and apprehension drawing his posture tight though he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Seeming to realize what he’d done, Dimitri sighed and squeezed his shoulders gently before releasing him, and it’s not until those hands retreat to his sides that Felix realized he’d been touching him with bare hands, skin to skin, all morning.

The king sat back, straightening his posture though his eyes remained on the mattress. Felix resolved to refrain from provoking, folding his own hands in his lap and steeling himself for what was to come. Dimitri always had a speech prepared for moments like this, and, well, it looked like this was the conversation they were going to have now. 

“I am sorry.” Dimitri started, “I kept putting it off, trying to find the courage to broach the subject with you, but here we are now, on the day everyone is set to leave…” He sighed, the sound full of frustration and exhaustion in equal measure. “What I mean to say is, would you do me the honor of coming to Fhirdiad with me? After- after tending to your own lands of course! I would never presume for you to shirk your duties simply because of me…” 

Dimitri swallowed, the bob of his throat compounded with the pretty flush of his cheeks jabbing straight for the hollow where Felix’s stomach used to be. “I want you by my side in the trials to come. I would welcome you as my Duke, not because your father promised mine, or because that is what has always been the case, but because I feel there is no one better for the position, and no one else I’d rather have fill it.” His eye flicked up, alighting on Felix with all the consideration of a tentative bird as opposed to the forcefulness of the gutsy beast he knew him to be. “But only if you want it. Only if you want… me.”

He wasn’t touching him. He was close, but not nearly as close as he had been when they had woken, but somehow not being touched by him right now is as unbearable and incredible as the open look on Dimitri’s face. 

He’d been through so many masks over the years. The coping child, the perfect prince, even the depraved beast- none of them were him in his entirety, the things he did and say to put distance between what he was feeling and what the world expected from him. And the mask of control- that mask in particular he’d clung to for so long, now tossed away, every cracked, chipping, bleeding, broken part of him on display, the words he spoke mournful and sullen as a scolded child though desire had stripped his voice raw, and- 

And… oh… _ oh _.

Felix was afraid he was about to be kissed. He's afraid he deliberately wants to be kissed. It’s the only thing in his head as he searched his face, his eye, his mind so barren and stupid and desperate with longing Felix doesn’t know what to do. 

Except croak, “Why?” 

Dimitri blinked at him, once, twice, expression at once both utterly bewildered and adoring. “Felix, you… you’re really asking me that?”

The room was flush and golden, the night long gone as day broke open the world around them, and the light that falls through the windows could’ve gone anywhere in the entire world but had to come here and dance in the dust and eyelashes and cling to regal panes and sharp hollows of this fool’s face.

Felix shook his head, and wheeled away, turning back to the far wall with a wave of his hand, feeling the blush climbing up his neck. “Never mind, don’t answer that.” He grumbled, pleased as ever to continue experiencing existence. “I’ll… think about it.”

“Thank you, Felix.”

“Don’t thank me for- ugh, forget I said anything.”

….Where did he get off thinking he could just say those things to him- and always dropping his name! Like a reminder that Felix was present and accounted for, as if he could ever forget.

_ Though… the acknowledgement... _

Irritation flooded him, to the point Felix was heavily considering hurling himself to the floor just to give himself something to feel and fixate on that wasn’t this incorrigible fool, when a new pressure presented itself on his back as the bed creaked and Dimitri dropped his head to his shoulder.

He tucked himself away into him, nose finding a home along Felix’s collarbone, sharp chin digging into his shoulder heavy and warm. A deep breath was released, the flutter of Dimitri’s chest now absent of hiccups when it pressed to Felix’ back, a contented sigh following it up from within Felix’s hair.

“We should get up.” He murmured after a moment into his neck.

Felix blew a strand of hair out of his face. “I need to find my clothes.” 

“...Five more minutes?”

The swordsman let out a sigh, long-suffering as everything in his life had ever been, and dropped his head to nuzzle his king’s. “Who’s the childish one now?”

**Author's Note:**

> A few weeks after Dimitri returned to Fhirdiad, Felix came up for a ‘visit’ but then never left.
> 
> tumblr: mistressakiraart and twitter: mistressakira12


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